An investment bank that’s been around for over 90 years believes Facebook ads are going to make the social network a whole lot of money in 2010.  In fact, Cowen and Company predicted that the sum will exceed $1.6 billion.

That’s significantly larger than the last credible estimate to cross anyone’s desk.  Joseph Tartakoff recalled late yesterday, "It was only last month that eMarketer said Facebook’s ad sales for the year would likely total $1.2 billion."

As for some additional details, Tartakoff continued, "Cowen & Co. analyst Jim Friedland says he expects that number to actually total more than $1.6 billion and non-ad revenue to bring Facebook’s overall sales to nearly $1.75 billion for the year."

Then, with respect to next year, Cowen and Company/Friedland thinks Facebook is capable of bringing in a whopping $3.2 billion in ad revenue.

These sorts of numbers are sure to attract a lot of attention, perhaps causing advertisers to spend more money to stand out and causing Google to divert more engineers to the Google Me project.

It’s also possible they’ll drive up the value of Facebook’s shares in the secondary market and make investors antsier than ever for an IPO.